How Do You Like Them Apples?
On Apple leaks on ‘iPhone X’ Eve
Tomorrow, for the 10th year in a row, Apple executives will take the stage to unveil a new iPhone. The setting has changed — the new Steve Jobs Theater at the new Spaceship HQ — but the song will largely remain the same. New iPhones. The best iPhones. Apple has done it again.
But this year is a bit different. Thanks to a timely (or decidedly untimely, if you’re Apple) software leak, we seemingly know everything that is going to be unveiled tomorrow. This is a fiasco of proportions not seen since some Apple employee accidentally left his iPhone 4 prototype in a bar. And even that was only a hardware leak. Such leaks have become a dime a dozen out of China due to the supply chains.
And while Apple has slowed them down a bit, we still basically knew what the new iPhone would look like this year thanks to the well-sourced Ming-Chi Kuo. But we almost never know what software features Apple will release alongside the new hardware. Until now.
I don’t know who leaked the iOS 11 GM builds. Reports suggest it is an Apple employee, and that seems likely. Why Apple would ever leave such code unprotected in the wild, we’ll probably never know (beyond the obvious convenience factor). Anyway, what’s far more interesting to me is the meta discussion around the leak.
Perhaps I have an interesting vantage point in that I both used to cover such leaks for a living, and now I work for a company where such leaks happen. I’ve seen both sides of this.
The question of why such leaks happen is a fascinating one. Sometimes, it’s fairly straightforward: people leak things in order to garner favor for future endeavors. Or because they think their company is doing something wrong. Or because they want to screw over someone they work with. You know, human nature things.
But sometimes it’s seemingly as simple as someone knowing something and feeling the need to tell others they know about it. And sometimes those “others” are reporters. It sounds crazy, I know. But it would, and I imagine still does, happen.
Who knows why this person leaked this link. Presumably, if they are indeed an Apple employee, they’re smart. And if they’re smart, they’ll have to know they’ll eventually be caught and fired. These companies are very, very good at tracking down such things these days. Maybe they were going to quit anyway. Maybe they were an intern with no real stake. Again, who knows.
What I do know is that the calls that reporting on this information is wrong in some way is silly. This is information of interest to the public. It may not be life-or-death information, but it points to what the most valuable company in the world is doing. This matters to a lot of people, for a lot of reasons.
There’s a reason why reporters and public relations are two different professions. Sometimes their interests are opposed, sometimes their interests are aligned, but they’re two sides of a coin. To suggest this information should not be reported on is to suggest that these professions should be the same.
Look, I understand the notion that some people don’t want big reveals at these Apple events “spoiled”. These events have become performances as much as anything else. Steve Jobs made this into an art form, and Apple has continued the tradition (and now, basically everyone in tech copies, or tries to copy, this model). People like to be “wowed” at performances. And the easiest way to do that is with surprise and delight.
Remove that from the equation — as I suspect these iOS 11 GM leaks have — and you’re left with little. You’re left with karaoke. It can still be fun, but it’s not the original.
I’m far more sympathetic to the thousands of employees at Apple who worked on all of these features for months and/or years. This sucks for you, full stop. But remember, the “prestige” is only a small part of the equation here. The “turn” — all that work — matters more in the long run.
Anyway, it would be easy to tell anyone who wants to remain “surprised and delighted” to avoid such news ahead of tomorrow. But as I can attest first-hand, if you’re on Twitter at all, it’s basically impossible. The iPhone is on the pantheon with Game of Thrones and live sporting events in this regard.
But suggesting reporters should not be covering this information is not the correct path forward. And I suspect that even Apple, if they’re being honest with themselves, once the heat around this leak has died down, would agree with such an assessment. They already have a PR department. It’s an absolute privilege that people care this much about your company and/or products to care about the details of your future plans. Most companies would kill for even a sliver of such a spotlight. For such leaks to matter.
